Just wondering if anyone else has any special or unusual helpers while they are spinning. My two year old daughter (who is 3 on 22th December) loves helping me to spin. She has always been interested from the time she could walk. She stands between my legs and helps to pedal and move the fibre into the spinning wheel. She loves the raw fleece and rubs her face in it. she will tease the fibre for me so that I can spin it easier, the only trouble is, she hates to give up the fibre. She loves the feel of it. Looks like I have a budding little spinner, she also loves watching me knit and sew up the garments.what helpers does everyone else have?

I have a cat who is a fiber snob - he's partial to goat fibers and corriedale sheep, with mohair being his greatest joy in life. When I'm working with mohair, he plays with the fiber before it makes its way into my hands (picture at the bottom of this post http://rosebyany.blogspot.com/2005/11/lame.html ). Sometimes he stands in my lap while I spin. And he's long haired, so every once in a while his fur gets caught in what I'm spinning and plucked right from his body (neither of us are thrilled when it happens, but what can you do?)

"Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable."http://RoseByAny.BlogSpot.Com

I have a cat that helps me ply by jumping onto the singles as they come off the Lazy Kate. And my daughter distracts me from my housework with pleas to spin with her. She hijacked my drop spindle (which I kinda stink at anyway, so I don't feel too bad about it) and the two of us like to spin together. It's not so much "helpful" when you consider that I'm spinning instead of doing the laundry, but it's nice to have an enabler in the family.

RosebyAny, that's a hilarious picture. My old dog just sleeps on the chair next to me. He is only interested in fiber that still has lanolin in it -- he thinks it is a very interesting new scent in the house.

Ahhhh... I have numerous pictures of Aslan and mohair. He is normally impeccably mannered (and adopted as an adult, so I don't even get credit. The one I raised from pre-leaving-his-mother age is hell on paws) and is so enamoured of mohair he would steal the balls and run - whether or not it was attached to my knitting or not. I eventually made him his own mohair blanket, which settled him down a bit because at least I can distract him when he gets that lovin'-feelin' look in his eye...

"Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable."http://RoseByAny.BlogSpot.Com

I have 3 dogs (big dogs) and many many cats that love to be right there while I spin. My Collies really like wool and love to try to sleep on the footman. The cats try to sit in my lap until their hair gets caught up in the drafting fibers. Others like to bat at the wheel or oriface hook. I'm never alone while spinning. Oh yes, I almost for got the cat that loves to nest in the bag of fibers I'm working from.

My cat will try to kill anything that ever came off an animal. Mohair, camel, wool, you name it and she will try to eat it. I can't leave anything out. If it's in yarn form she will bite right through it.Jessica

I have an adorable imp of a cat named Elizabeth Jane . We found this precious little tiger-striped dearie abandoned on a scrap of terry cloth in the yard of an equally abandoned house two years ago. She was maybe 3 weeks old and right away figured out that I was now her Mom. Because I am always home, she and I got thick as thieves and joined at the hip. Every afternoon she would have a long, deep snooze on my lap whilst bobbing up and down as I was treadling away at my spinning wheel. If she wasn't in my lap when I started my spinning, she would show up during, and ask to be lifted up into her nest. Now of course, she is an independent young cat woman and would be embarrassed to know that I am telling this story about her babyhood. She no longer will jump up voluntarily into my lap, but she has retained a kittenhood habit that I wish she would have left behind: she will swallow yarn just like Lady and the Tramp slurped down the spagetti during their romantic Italian dinner. It's amazing how fast it can disappear into her gullet. I have had to pull lengths of yarn several feet long back up and out! Therefore, we have to be ever-vigilant about leaving any yarn or string out where she can get it. There are better ways to get fiber into the diet!

Oh my, at least my cat doesn't swallow yarn that way! She's just trying to kill it. Bite it into pieces and it's dead, don't ya know? coincidentally I found her in an alley when she was about 12 weeks old.firymist

My cat doesn't try to eat yarn or fiber, but he loves to chase a ball of yarn around the room, then looks completely befuddled when the ball disappears. I've come home more than once to find my floor decorated with the yarn I'm using for whatever project I left out.

When I spin, he will put the side of his face along the wheel, letting it rub/scratch his cheek. Of course, this also puts quite a drag on the wheel, so after a few minutes, I chase him away. Generally, he's back in less than 2 minutes, but eventually gets bored with this game. Then he tries to nest in the fiber. He watches like a hawk when I'm plying, but so far, hasn't quite figured out how to play with the yarn moving from lazy kate to the wheel. He'll bat at it once in a while, but that's a boring game, so very short-lived.

He's also a foundling - at about three months old on the Ohio Turnpike, roaming about one of the rest stops. That was about 9-1/2 years ago.

I generally don't have help with my spinning, unless you count the time Gonzo (dog) ran through the lines of singles I was plying, yanking the bobbins out of the lazy Kate, sending them flying and scaring the bejeezus out of herself at the same time. Oh, and Smudge (cat) will sometimes walk back & forth between the wheel & my treadling leg. I just know I'm going to end up spinning his fluffy tail into my yarn one day.

Knitting, now--that's a different story. Hoover (cat) thinks that the perfect place to nap is on top of the ball of yarn I am using to knit. He will also very casually stretch and *totally by coincidence* hook one paw ever-so-gently around the end of the knitting needle & pull it towards himself. Kip (bird) tries to cut the yarn for me with that sharp bill of his, which wouldn't be so bad if I actually wanted the yarn cut at that point.

--Susan T-O in Long Beach CA

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.'" --Isaac Asimov